


A necessary sacrifice

by Alexis_universe



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gem War, Gen, One Shot, Pink Diamond is actually a good person, how the war actually ended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 15:06:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7806568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexis_universe/pseuds/Alexis_universe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a fierce battle in strawberry battlefield, Rose confronts Pink Diamond.</p><p>You know the rest of the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A necessary sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> So... I'd like to believe that Rose completely hated the very thought of killing someone and I wrote something about it.

Rose stood in the middle of the battlefield, in front of the gem that once was her only reason to exist: Pink Diamond.

Rose was bleeding through several shallow wounds over her skin and her dress was ragged. Her opponent however, was in a much worse condition as pink blood flowed rapidly through several deep cuts in arms, legs and a hole on her chest made with the pink blade.

"It's all over now..." Rose said exhausted to the other gem. "My Diamond."

Even though Rose managed to pierce her heart with her sword, The matriarchs of homeworld were known to be the most resilient beings in the universe. 

So the Diamond was still capable of speak and let out a chuckle of amusement.

"After all you did, you still dare to address me as your Diamond?"

"I was part of your court didn't I?" Rose answered as the grip on her sword tightened. "It would be rude to not address you correctly."

The Diamond laughed again at her.

"Not addressing me correctly would be the least rude thing you could do after what you did." A line of blood ran down the right commissure of her mouth. "To turn against your homeworld and destroy the physical form of countless gems only to stop a colony. That is rude."

"I'll tell you what is rude." Rose glared at her. "To destroy anyone who doesn't thinks like you."

A dry breeze blew between the space separating both gems.

"And so if we did?" The Diamond said. "We are your creators. You were made to serve us."

"That doesn't mean that we want to!" Rose shouted angrily. "You only think of us like if we were emotionless tools!"

"And this pathetic effort of a rebellion is that?" The matriarch said. "An excuse for defects like you to do what you want?"

"The Crystal Gems are not defects!" Rose yelled. "They deserve to have a life like any of the aristocrats in homeworld!"

"And what role plays the earth in your plan?" The Diamond straightened her posture a little.

Rose stopped to glare at the gem and looked at the ground.

"This place is perfect for us to make a new home." Rose said with a soft voice. "Everything here is so different from everything. The creatures living in the planet are so unique between them..."

"Like everyone in your Crystal Gems." The Diamond said with a monotonic voice, winning a glare from Rose.

"That's why your forces will retreat to homeworld." Rose said. "The tools that idolize you and your sisters will leave this planet alone."

"And you're going to put me in a bubble after my form cease to be in order to achieve that." The Diamond said. "Don't you?"

"Yes." Rose responded boldly.

The Diamond began to chuckle at Rose's answer before her laughter escalated in volume as blood began to pour even more from her chest wound.

"What is so funny!?" A rather upset Rose asked.

Pink Diamond's laugh died out before answering.

"Your plan is good Rose, I give you that. However, there is one fault on it."

"And can you tell me where it is?" Rose asked with a cocky attitude, believing that her plan was flawless.

"You'll have to shatter me if you want your defects to reach their freedom." The Diamond stated, erasing Rose's cockiness in an instant.

"Sh-Shatter you?" Rose asked nervously. "W-Why Should I do that?"

"Did you really thought that my sisters would let you have a planet if you capture me?" The Diamond said. "They would not stop at anything to set me free again." 

"N-No!" Rose said. "There must be another way!"   
The matriarch let out another chuckle before speaking again.

"There is no other way Rose." The Diamond said. "The only way to prevent homeworld from colonize earth is Shattering me."

Rose looked at her with a sickened look.

"I-I can't." Rose said. "It's not right." She remembered the discussion with Bismuth about the breaking point. "That would make me the same as you."

"And so?" The Diamond said as more blood flowed from her mouth "You would only shatter one gem in order to let your troops live."

"That's not the point!" Rose said.

"Then what is it?" The Diamond said.

Rose's tight grip on the sword was replaced with uncontrollable shaking due to her nervousness.

The Diamond took that shaking as an answer.

"I see." The Diamond said amused. "You can't bring yourself to do it."

"What?" Rose said.

"You had the wits to start a rebellion, to make hundreds of gems to join your cause and promise them that they would be free if they followed you." The wounded gem said. "You had the wits to challenge me in a battle and you won..." She raised a bloodied hand into the sky. "But you can't bring yourself to do the only thing that will give you a victory."

Her hand began to glow as a pink light shot out of it, exploding in the sky in a pink geometric shape.

"What was that!?" Rose said panicked.

"That, Rose, was a emergency flare." The Diamond explained. "I called for troops to finish this."

"Why!?" Rose's grip on her sword returned to be firm.

"I've told you, To put an end to this." The Diamond said as she placed her hand over her wound again. "If you destabilize me to put me in a bubble, They will shatter you and put an end to your rebellion." She lifted her body upwards in an attempt to stand up. "However, If you shatter me, they will retreat back to homeworld afraid of you."

"Why!?" Rose said angrily. "What do you want to prove with this!? Why would you tell me to shatter you?!"

The Diamond laughed with a bit of sadness in her voice.

"Because I don't want to destroy the Earth." She said.

"W-What?" Rose said incredulously.

"We have at least fifteen minutes before homeworld's troops reach our position, so I'll drop this facade and tell you my reasons for why I don't want this planet destroyed." The Diamond said to Rose.

"And why should I believe them!?" The smaller gem shouted.

"I don't want you to believe me." Pink Diamond said. "I want you to listen to me, I've been holding this inside my gem for thousands of years and I want to set it free."

Rose looked at her for a moment before lowering her sword.

"Alright then." The matriarch said before beginning.

"There is a reason for me to not have a colony." The Diamond said as she slowly rose to her feet. "I couldn't stand to see how my sisters destroyed and hollowed out habited planets to augment their own power in the name of the empire. I considered it wasn't right to kill an entire civilization that could one day become as advanced as ours."

"However, it is necessary for a Diamond to own a colony as a symbol of their power." She kept going. "So they chose this small planet for me to conquer, so I could be the same as them. They even lend me troops and advice on how to do the planning."

Rose just stood speechless at the Diamond.

"I couldn't do anything to stop it. Even if I disapproved earth's colonization, my sisters could just take the plan for themselves and then colonize it."

"I saw powerless as a planet with so much potential on its own was being destroyed in my name."

"Or at least I was before you appeared."

Rose looked up at her with a confused look.

"Your rebellion was what I just needed to stop the colony to be completed." The Diamond said genuinely. "You managed to become a threat to our regime. And you became the key to stop the colonization of earth."

"Your ideology helped you to gather enough gems to make a small but formidable army, using what we just saw as wasted materials to defeat entire armies."

The matriarch let out a small chuckle.

"And then, it became even harder to keep up with you when that mixed fusion joined you and your army followed their example."

She moved her head to stare sadly at a starry sky, looking at homeworld's galaxy.

"However, I realized that no matter how many borrowed soldiers fell in name of the colony, they would keep trying to stop you from freeing this world as long as the Diamond they serve is still alive."

"That's when I decided to have a final showdown with you, the winner would decide the fate of earth." The Diamond looked back at Rose again with her diamond shaped eyes. "If you got shattered, the rebels would surrender and the colony would be completed; But if I got shattered, then the earth and your Crystal Gems would be free from my sisters' ambition."

Rose stared at her with a skeptic look.

"If what you say is true... Then why you didn't helped us?" Rose said. "If you were really on our side you could have done something to delay it!"

"I tried to do something to stop it." Pink Diamond said, eliciting another confused look in Rose's face. "I sabotaged the construction of the beta kindergarten, I lowered the security on several spires and temples that are now under your control and I let you take control of the warp network of the planet."

The Diamond chuckled again.

"Isn't ironic Rose?" She asked. "A diamond is supposed to be one of the most perfect, logical and powerful beings in the universe, and yet, I decided to go against my own nature as one of them to try to save a planet such as this one just for a simple caprice, instead of destroying it to make myself more powerful."

There was silence between them for a pair of seconds.

"That's why you must shatter me Rose." The Diamond said. "If homeworld discover that I am defective, they will execute all my court along with me."

"And if I shatter you'll become a martyr for them." Rose completed. "And all your court would be saved from any punishment for your actions."

A loud droning sound was heard throughout all the battlefield as a homeworld ship overflew it, looking for a place to land safely.

"It looks like our fifteen minutes are over." Pink Diamond said as she pulled out an axe from the ground. "I'd recommend you to hurry up and finish me off Rose."

The Quartz only stared at the other gem. Her sword hand shaking at the thought of ending her opponent's life with it.

"I can't do it." Rose said. "I'm not going to kill you!"

The vessel landed a few miles away from the gems.

"And You're going to let the planet and your people to die in my place?" The Diamond said, trying to lift the axe into an offensive stance.

"No." Rose's Grip on the sword became steady again. "I'm going to do this according to my plan."

The sound of a multitude of feet was heard from the place the ship landed.

"Alright then." The Diamond said lowering the hand that applied pressure on the chest wound, letting the pink blood to flow uncontrollably away from her body. "You leave me no other choice."

The gems stood in place as the footsteps became louder.

In an instant, both gems let out a single battle cry before rushing towards each other preparing their weapons to attack.

The air was cut by the sharp weapons before a cracking sound was heard at the same time the homeworld soldiers reached the place.

The Diamond let out another chuckle as she dropped the weapon she grabbed.

"I Really hope that your Crystal Gems have the life they want here Rose." Pink Diamond said as her form flickered.

"Wh- What have I done?" Rose whispered to herself with a horrified expression on her face.

"You just saved the earth Rose." Pink Diamond said with the pink sabre piercing through her navel, where her pink gemstone was resting. "Take care of it."

Saying her last words, Pink Diamond's form vaporized into a cloud of smoke while the pink gemstone cracked before breaking itself into tiny shards.

"D-Did you saw that?" A Quartz said horrified.

"She shattered her." A small ruby said.

"She killed a Diamond!" An emerald shouted.

"Rose Quartz Shattered a Diamond!!"

"What are we going to do!?"

"I say that we should shatter her!!"

"She killed a Diamond mercilessly! What gives you the idea that you can beat her!?"

"We should call for reinforcements!"

"Yeah! That's a good plan! We should return to the ship and regroup!"

"Yeah!" An amethyst said before all the troops escaped from the Diamond killer back into the ship.

Rose however, kneeled down next to the pink shards of the diamond. Tears rolling down her cheeks before crying so loudly that her sobs were heard throughout the entire battlefield.

Eventually, her closest friends, Pearl, Ruby and Sapphire, reformed on the battlefield and rushed at her.

"Rose! What happened!? Did We won?!" Pearl asked her friend who turned around at her with tears in her eyes.

"Yes Pearl... we won."

**Author's Note:**

> Two days later, the remaining Diamonds nuked the planet, corrupting every gem on earth...


End file.
